


wide blue yonder

by illinois_e



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Time Skip, atsumu lives day by day in a state of hornyness for his buff farmer bf, boilersuits: the fic, i prefer not putting many things here as to not spoil the fic, seems i cant write anything else
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25429162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinois_e/pseuds/illinois_e
Summary: as the sun rises and falls, faithfully, over the wide expanse of the sky until the end of the world, so atsumu goes back and forth on the same path, at the end of which a home waits for him, surrounded by the yellow tint of drying rice, and the man who gifted him infinity stands under the everlasting sunlight.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 14
Kudos: 87
Collections: Atsukita Week





	wide blue yonder

**Author's Note:**

> for atsukita week, day 3: **sunrise/sunset** / warm touches
> 
> [sighs] i think that was the sappiest summary ive ever written

> **i. 04:53AM**

when atsumu wakes up, all he can see is the rosy tinted shade of the skies above from the slight gap between curtain and wall. it’s purposeful. designed. kita hates the sound of alarms—screaming clocks, electric stoves, the cute fox-shaped kitchen timer atsumu bought as a joke. says he doesn’t need anything more than a strip of sunlight falling into his eyes to wake up. and atsumu, well, atsumu needs a fully fledged rock band most days, which the msby provided him in the forms of bokuto and shoyo. but not today, it seems. 

waking early has its perks. the light plays tricks with shinsuke’s hair, makes the gray strands seems colored, alight. an old man’s hair, atsumu would say, and kita would smile, fleeting and mischievous, all-knowing eyes over atsumu like a spider web, trapping him in. kita _is_ an old man sometimes, though sometimes he is not; just like atsumu is a idiot sometimes, and sometimes he is not. like when he threads his fingers through kita’s hair, pondering, as he has being doing for years, about the black ends, and everything not known about genetics, and colors, and hair. and love, too.

he feels kita moving by his side, all the right places of his body pressing into all the right places of atsumu’s body, naked from the night before, gleaming from the light within. kita’s skin is still hot from his slumber as atsumu presses a kiss against it, kita’s hand sliding blindy up his arm until it finds atsumu’s cheek and rests there.

“somethin’ wrong?” kita asks, still drowsy, still finding his way back from dreamland, and yet alert enough to notice something must’ve happened to get atsumu awake at this godforsaken hour. the only thing that’s wrong is not being able to wake up with his arms around shinsuke every day, but atsumu is not telling him that. too mushy. osamu would laugh at him for a solid hour, if he knew—and then he would turn around and say the exact same thing to sunarin using different words, because he’s insufferable just like that.

“nothin’.” atsumu presses himself more against kita’s back, all their angles fitting like a jigsaw puzzle called destiny. when a shudder runs through kita’s body, atsumu feels it as if it was his own. there’s a smile on his face. there’s a smile on his face most of the time, but this one feels only half his. half kita’s. “go back to sleep, ya still have half an hour.”

“good,” kita whispers, and his breath turns heavy again so quickly that’s like their whole interaction was just an interlude inside his dream. it’s nice to think that kita is dreaming of him. it’s nice to watch it, and forget about all the mornings he wakes up alone in his dorm, cold even under two blankets, condensation clinging to his soul.

* * *

> **ii. 05:20AM**

there’s a rustle of clothes at the periphery of his hearing. there’s a shinsuke-shaped gap between his arms. atsumu wishes he could turn back time as he does in kita’s bedside table clock that keeps resetting itself as if on a whim. he’s quite happy being a monster, though. no need to become a god.

(if he were a god, he could see kita every day. it’s a good prospect; unattainable, however. he likes to delude himself.)

atsumu peeks his eyes open. the sun has fully risen now, and there’s a strip of yellow light crossing the mattress over kita’s spot, as if it’s begging him to come back, to let the span of his body to become a canvas for the sun. and then he looks around the room, his eyes locking in the form that moves silently to the door.

“oh no,” atsumu says, and kita turns back, the lines of a frown marring the perfect arranging of his face. he opens his mouth—ready to ask _something wrong?_ again, because kita is always worrying, always caring, always giving pieces of himself to other people as if someday he’s not going to end empty of his own essence. atsumu beats him to it. “ya bought _another_ boilersuit?”

and shinsuke. (atsumu would sometimes repeat the name in his head over and over and over like a man that is mad, or a man that is in love, which is kind of the same thing). shinsuke laughs; open, light, free, like a bird that takes flight to the vast expanses of the open sky, never to be seen by the same eyes again. it is funny in the sense that atsumu could not imagine anyone more rooted to the earth it grows upon than kita. shrike to a thorn.

“what do ya have against my boilersuits?” plural. kita has been steadily growing a sizeable collection of them. a palette of colors that varies depending on his mood, or so atsumu deduced. today he’s wearing pink. atsumu likes pink. thinks it’s a nice color. flirty. like the color of shinsuke’s cheeks when atsumu goes down on him. “i’ll have ya know they’re very comfortable.”

atsumu raises his body against the headboard, in a half-lying half-sitting position that would have meian dragging him into an acceptable posture by the ear. he spreads his legs, and grins when he catches kita staring at the wide expanse of uncovered skin. “it’s just that ya look awfully hot in them, ya know. but they’re terrible to take off. like, what’s the point of havin’ yer boyfriend look like a model for a homoerotically charged version of _the modern farmer_ magazine if he’s gonna spend a full minute gettin’ undressed?”

in his mind, bokuto gives him a high-five. in real life, kita looks at him with a mixture of fondness and exasperation that atsumu is quite familiar it. it’s the expression for whenever he says or does something really stupid that ends up making kita love him even more.

“it’s too early, so i’m goin’ to disregard all that ya said, and simply put the rice to dry while _lookin’ awfully hot in my boilersuit_ , so—” and when he turns back to the door, atsumu is greeted by a piece of ass so beautiful all thoughts of sleeping until midday fly through the window. “sleep tight while i work to support this family.”

figuratively, atsumu’s chin is on the floor. figuratively, he wastes a minute doing nothing more than looking in surprise at the space that kita’s body was occupying in the room before managing to pick it up. support the family! as if atsumu’s yearly income wasn’t more than double that of kita. as if kita didn’t know that, and yet! and yet he says that, knowing not that atsumu dreams of lying in a bed of rice leaves, waiting for his buff farmer boyfriend to come back from the fields all sweaty, and proceed to have sex with him immediately. over the rice.

(one day atsumu is going to convince kita to have sex with him in the paddies. one day.)

and that's because he hasn't yet delved into the fact that kita referred to them as _family_. because he might die, if he does. he might transform into a puddle of lovesick goo like a cartoon character from the ‘60s. he might not live to see kita getting out of the boilersuit, which is, in his opinion, the worst of possibilities.

atsumu does not check if he’s wearing his clothes on the right side before following kita, hopping in one feet as he sticks the other into his pants. “wait!” he shouts, not at all like miya atsumu, starting setter for the msby black jackals, asshole-extraordinaire, hercules posing on his pedestal. not at all like the carefully built image he made for himself, which does not include him running half naked around a country house, unless he’s fleeing from the husband of the woman he has just slept with. a hollywoodian casanova. 

kita is standing by the kitchen, hip propped against the table. there’s a black and golden cup filled with green tea cradled in his hands just as atsumu would like to be cradled. right now. in this exact instant, and the one after, and the one after. he’s much better than green tea at any given time, so there’s no reason for kita to have his elegant fingers wrapped around that stupid cup with the jackals’ logo and not on atsumu’s not-at-all-stupid face. 

“what?” kita asks, unfazed. atsumu unintentionally putting himself in situations that expose him to ridicule is but a common occurrence ever since they’ve known each other. oh, to be once again seventeen and in love with the team’s designated asshole. “ya put yer shirt inside out.”

“i did.” atsumu answers, and even though his fingers itch he doesn’t take the shirt off, because there isn’t any reason to take it off if he put it that way on purpose. which, unknowingly, he did. fate and the words it writes inside stars. there’s a reason for everything, even for his stupidity. there’s a reason that shinsuke loves him, even though he’s him. and shinsuke is, well, shinsuke—a name that just sums up everything that is beautiful and quiet. “i’m also goin’ to help ya today, remember? ya said i could.”

kita's tongue peeks out of his mouth, wets his lips in a seemingly innocent movement. life, atsumu thinks, is unfair. and it's especially unfair to him, standing in the kitchen with his shirt inside out, undeservedly admiring every single movement of the man before him. life is unfair, and this is what makes it challenging. what makes it worth living.

“it's hard work, ya know.”

“and i’ll have _ya_ know i am a professional volleyball player, shinsuke.” his chest puffs up as he says that. _professional_ volleyball player. japan’s best setter. or well, second best. but it doesn't matter right now, does it? he is the best in kita's eyes, and while they're secured in their little cocoon, that's all he needs. “if ya think i can't take a little rice, yer sorely mistaken.”

atsumu pretends he's not offended when kita giggles. he is, in fact, too busy commiting the sound to memory to be offended. one more entry or his mental document of things to remember when he starts missing kita (approximately half an hour after he leaves him). the way his hair sticks to the sides when he wakes up. the smell of him after a bath, fresh and citrus-y—makes atsumu want to eat him. the shine on his skin after he comes from the paddies, his face a light shade of red from the effort. the way he traces atsumu’s face every night before going to sleep, as if one day hoping to sculpt him in rock from memories alone. atsumu would be the first to repeat their high school motto, and tell kita he doesn't need memories. he has atsumu now. he will have him whenever he wishes.

“well then.” kita takes a step. another. then another. soon he's a breath away from atsumu. which is too much, if you ask atsumu. any distance is too much, though there's a whole degree of _insufferable_ in having kita just close enough to touch and yet not be touching him. “i guess i could use a hand to hang the bundles on the rack. it's quite heavy, all that rice. but as ya said, yer a pro player, so it won’t be that much of a hassle. i hope.”

this game of not touching: atsumu hates it because he always loses in the end. one of his arms sneaks around kita’s waist, pulling him close, chest to chest, almost mouth to almost mouth. and there’s that look in kita’s eyes, like he knows every single thing that has passed inside atsumu’s head and loves him all the more for that. like he’s a priest in a ancient shrine by the mountains, but still atsumu takes the climb every day, just to take a sneaky glance at his lips.

(they are very nice lips)

“i’m also the strongest one, so truly, it won’t be a problem at all.”

and there’s this: atsumu loves the fact that kita has to stand on his tiptoes to kiss him. he’s a little bit obsessed by it—just the smallest bit, truly. and now, as kita stands on his tiptoes in the fucking boilersuit, atsumu thinks he might swoon. just for the dramatic effect. just the make the audience cheer. and when kita finally kisses him, well, there’s no hiding who’s the one keeping them both on their feet. clue: it’s not atsumu. clue: his heart doesn’t do the somersaults, anymore. instead, it cherishes. softly, slowly. piece by piece by piece. clue: he would trade a thousand stars for this, easily, would pluck them from the sky himself. astrosuit and all, floating on zero gravity. it can’t be too different from what he’s feeling right now.

“if ya say so,” kita says. there’s a string of saliva connecting their mouths and it’s somewhat driving atsumu insane. “let’s test these muscles of yers, then.”

atsumu could think of a thousand better ways of testing his muscles, like, say, carrying kita bridal style to their bedroom and ripping the boilersuit with his hands because he’s _not_ going to take it off slowly, but if kita says throwing rice, then for atsumu — who is just a little over that line in which he would carry kita piggyback to the moon — throwing rice it is.

* * *

> **iii. 12:05PM**

atsumu does not appreciate the complex logic behind rice cultivation. 

he's spread on the living room floor like a starfish. atsumu would appreciate being surrounded by water. his muscles are on fire, and not in the good sense. like when they win a five set game, or when kita rides him so hard he can't move his legs after and he feels every centimeter of his own skin as if possessing the double of nervous terminations. it's not that kind of fire.

“tired?” above him, kita looms like a titan. atlas, about to hurl atsumu out of the sky with his big farmer arms. he feels very tiny, very weak, and very, very stupid. 

not tired. fucking _exhausted._ “just gimme a minute.”

he feels too hot to touch, too hot to think, and yet— and yet kita kneels by his side, a feather-light touch on his forehead, just to check. it would be the funniest thing, if atsumu had a fever. what a weakling. can’t even throw some bundles of rice before his arms fall off. “i’m fine, ya know. just— _whew_.”

“good. ‘cause we still hafta work the whole afternoon. lots of rice to dry. and the buyers, they want their rice, atsumu. they want it _now_. especially yer brother. how can he cook onigiri without my rice? he’ll go bankrupt. is that what ya want?”

“noooooo,” atsumu whines, turning his back to kita. he does not want to talk about osamu right now. he does not want to talk about anything besides the massage kita ought to give him with his deft fingers. fingers that atsumu loves very much. fingers that trace the patterns of mysteries unspeakable over his chest every night they spend together. fingers made for plucking rice seeds out of their chaff and plucking atsumu out of his armor. “i hate ‘samu but the onigiri is nice.”

he doesn’t look at his back to watch kita chuckle. instead, he looks at the open backdoor, from where yellow and green stretch until the horizon line, miles and miles of it. he could easily imagine himself twenty years from now, too old to play professionally anymore, his arms which were attuned to the movements of setting a volleyball now used to the rhythmic swing of a scythe. chop and chop and chop. kita knelt down beside him, brushing the grains with a fine brush to remove humidity, ever careful, ever caring.

it’s like standing on a tightrope. sometimes atsumu wishes for a youth potion so that he can play like a god long after the world stops existing. sometimes all he can think about is retirement, his days long and peaceful, the crickets singing by the window, shinsuke pressed against him, shinsuke wrapped in his warms, shinsuke laying his head on atsumu’s shoulder, shinsuke’s body on top of him. shinsuke shinsuke shinsuke. a prayer for a god only atsumu knows the existence of. 

equilibrium was never known as one of his strong points.

“ya know ya can just… admit failure. i’m not gonna hold it against ya that ya though it was just _a little rice_. it’s a different kind of strength than what ya need for volleyball.” his hand slides up and down over atsumu’s back, under his shirt. _too hot,_ but atsumu wouldn’t dare complain. it’s a fire alight over a fire— but the second one does not burns; purely simmers. “more steady. ya were always one for explosions, great _bangs_ , fireworks. everything that’s fleetin’ but stays fixed in memory, even in a team that doesn’t need them.”

“shinsuke,” he says, and his voice is just the tiniest bit tearful. “how can i expect to become humble and kind and all that shit if i got ya sayin’ these kinds of things to me?” how can one not feel the greatest person alive being the recipient of the words cautiously wrought from your mouth?

there’s a kiss on his forehead, cool, like the shadow of a tree after a long day in the sun. atsumu could bask in it for hours without end. atsumu could bask into kita’s light for a whole life, and another one. “ya were awful at receivin’, though.”

“shinsuke!”

“i don’t see ya tryin’ to deny it.”

 _perfect kita shinsuke. mr. no gaps kita shinsuke._ atsumu is going to keep his mouth shut. atsumu is not going to spoil the moment, which is one of his many talents. he can feel kita’s smile inside his mouth, inside his body. he can feel it as one does feel the blood rushing inside one’s veins, a thrumming sound, louder and louder until it’s about to burst. louder and louder until atsumu is about to cry, because he’s ridiculous, and he pretends to be cool and amazing and unattainable, but he is, quite frankly, a big sap who is very much in love and doesn’t know how to deal with that. osamu would have the time of his life, if he knew. but then, atsumu thinks he knows. atsumu thinks everyone knows—they just pretend they don’t so can cradle an ounce of pride against his chest like a firstborn child. or a lover.

“anyway.” kita rises up, and if atsumu was only tearful moments before, right now he feels ready to bawl his eyes out begging kita to stay. “why don’t ya fix us something to eat, hm? i gotta finish hanging those last bundles. and in the afternoon i’ll just cut some more and drain one of the paddies, which are things i can do alone.”

“this is a nice way of sayin’ ya don’t need me.”

“this is a nice way of sayin’ ya should rest yer weak ass so we can play volleyball when the sun comes down.” a hand in his hair, pulling it back from his sweaty forehead. a kiss on his cheek, and then soft steps leading to the fields. atsumu wants to follow him, wants to hear kita talking until the world crumbles around them, but he stays put, breathing whatever is left of kita’s perfume in the air before sitting straight.

his belly rumbles. atsumu picks up his phone from where he left on the center table and opens the conversation with osamu. _teach me a nice thing to cook for lunch._

* * *

> **iv. 18:50PM**

the cats don’t like atsumu that much.

if he were to be honest with himself, he would admit that omurice most likely hates him. the little orange demon hisses whenever atsumu comes close, and it tried to bit off his finger more times he could count—although he bites kita sometimes, so maybe he just never learned how to demonstrate affection. like atsumu himself.

chazuke might like him, if only a little bit. donburi simply ignores him, most of time, even when atsumu is pouring food into their bowls, as he’s doing now. and that’s okay. it’s not like atsumu cares about what a bunch of cats think about him.

they all seem to love kita, however. atsumu can relate to that.

(even okayu, and seeing him is almost a miracle.)

“yer nice with the kids.” kita is resting against the door, ankles crossed, looking at atsumu with something resembling fondness. atsumu has to repeat ten times in his mind that screeching loudly because kita referred to the cats as kids, as in, family, as in _their_ family, would be highly humiliating. so he looks down and tries to calm himself scratching chazuke’s head. she’s a good cat.

“only with this one. i think she might like me.” chazuke shakes her head as soon as atsumu says that, which could be a denial or her saying she wants to be left alone to eat. atsumu sighs, both his hands on his lap, crouching down like a good cat dad who is hated by the cats. “or maybe not.”

“they all like ya. they just… show it in different ways.” as kita says that, he pets omurice with his feet, and the little fucker has the audacity to rise up in his hind legs and _purr_. atsumu wonders about the rules and regulations of having negative feelings toward felines. “ya know what, i think okayu loves ya the most. he always ends up showin’ his face when yer around. i bet he’s gonna come home tomorrow.”

tomorrow is sitting unbothered at the first place in the list of things atsumu does not want to think about. tomorrow, he’s going back to osaka. back to the jackals, to bokuto’s constant yelling, to sakusa’s disapproving stares and hinata’s permanently charged battery. all things he can’t live without. all things he has come to equate with the joy of playing volleyball. all things which are not kita, whom he also can’t live without. tomorrow, atsumu is going back to the path he chose for himself.

(he doesn’t regret it. and he knows that kita doesn’t resent him for that. after all, would atsumu truly be atsumu otherwise? what is _miya atsumu_ besides the amalgamation of every choice made in his life?)

“come help me with dinner,” kita says as he rises up, a hand stretched for atsumu to take it—and he takes it, links their fingers together as if they’re boyfriends on their first date, walking through a park, arms swinging along the beat of their anxious hearts. kita gives a half, secretive smile, with the corner of his mouth atsumu can’t see from the angle he’s standing in. he does not need to see; only to know.

atsumu cuts the pork while kita cuts all the rest—cabbage, carrot, mushroom, onion, scallions. no one cooks in the msby dorms. once bokuto tried and started a small fire. atsumu had to video call osamu to make sure he did the miso chicken in the right way at lunch (he didn’t—atsumu thought it was pretty good either way, and kita agreed. let osamu be a bitter old man if he wanted to). he’s slow, trying to leave all the slices at the exact same size, whereas in kita’s hands the knife goes up and down so fast atsumu worries about his boyfriends’ fingers all the while.

there’s something nice in doing things together. there’s something he can’t describe. words atop of each other like a jenga tower, swaying left and right for a excruciating second before stabilization. kita’s face as he adds the seasoning after everything is almost done is open, not a wrinkle of worry on his face, not a thought besides this—utter domesticity. atsumu is explosions, great _bangs_ , fireworks. kita is repetitions until perfection, long ways traveled in walking speed, food left to roast during a whole day. kita is an unknown word lodged inside atsumu’s throat. it won’t let itself be spoken. atsumu doesn’t force it. he’s sure it will come out when the time is right.

sometimes he entertains the idea the he loves kita a little more than the amount people are expected to love each other.

(what can he say? atsumu always goes for the overkill.)

“can we wait a bit, before we eat?” he asks, hugging kita’s back, chin propped on his head. hair that smells like coconut shampoo. soft, bright, blinding. atsumu is a small particle in the big scheme of the universe; kita is the one steering him so that doesn’t fall out of its borders. all things considered, he’s doing a great job. “i’m not hungry yet.” aka can you let me hold you so that i can get the shape of your body imprinted into mine? 

“sure,” kita says. nothing more. no asking why. he closes the lid on the kettle and puts the fire out. resting against atsumu, he feels solid and heavy. present. something he won’t be when atsumu steps foot inside his car, foot grinding the accelerator, osaka headed, kita behind him in a cloud of smoke. a tear or two sprinkled where he isn’t able see, almost ritualistic. life is a big ritual for a long forgotten god, if you think about it. atsumu prefers not to. “let’s watch the sunset.”

and if the fields were yellow before, when the sun was at its peak, atsumu doesn’t have a word for how it looks right now. maybe golden—still, it doesn’t sound right. doesn’t sound _enough_ , in the same way that seeing kita only a few days each month isn’t enough. but he manages. they manage. and they’ll keep managing it until it’s not needed anymore, because atsumu is more willing to part from one of his limbs than from kita. they say there’s a river in the underworld and he’s willing to bathe in it, to beat the record for the fastest swim in flaming waters. there’s a list for it. it’s evergrowing. sticky note glued to the tail end of another sticky note; repeated to infinite.

at the beginning, he would wonder if it was the same for kita. wanted to wake him up at three in the morning and ask if kita would drink the whole sea for him. now he has come more or less in terms with the fact that he does not love with the intent of being equally reciprocated. he does not love in proportion, or alongside a set line. knowing that kita loves him it’s enough. after all, with big declarations and a plane flying around the farm carrying a banner with both their names on it, would it be the same kita atsumu had fallen in love since high school?

he sees the big picture and it delights him just so. the tiny details can be polished with time, carefully, by two sets of different hands.

“it’s beautiful,” atsumu says. he’s a little out of breath, because— just because. the sky shines vibrant orange and red. there’s nothing like the sort in osaka, but here? here he’s in fantasy land. here he is into another dimension. here he is into a heaven in which nothing ever happens. as a kid, he would hate it. with twenty years over his back, it’s just the place he needs to be.

kita reaches for atsumu’s hand between their bodies. it isn’t that much of a novelty to him. atsumu doesn’t know, but kita prefers much more to appreciate how atsumu watches the sunset than to watch it himself. “yeah. but i think yer more.” he twirls his index in a circular motion, encompassing all the universe since the big bang. “after a while, it’s a bit of the same. ya, though? every time ya come here, yer different. a little thing here, another there. yer always changin’. always surprisin’ me.”

no one would ever agree with him, but atsumu thinks it is actually possible for a human being to live with his heart outside of his body, because, you see, piece by piece, kita has being taken it out of atsumu’s chest and right into the palms of his hands. and now he has it all. now atsumu is his, completely. absolutely. now kita has the power to smother him, and yet— and yet he cradles him, as if touching a diamond, or a tiny baby shoe. the first rice of the season. 

he holds atsumu as if he’s something precious and irreplaceable, something worth to build your life upon. 

and atsumu, true to everything he tries to pretend he is not, gets easily overwhelmed under the weight of it all. “shisunke…” he opens his mouth. closes it. there’s no words. he feels dumb. but he also feels so utterly and thoroughly loved, as if every flaw and failing of his is an integral part of the image the light forms when it shines through his skin. “i— ya have no idea how much—”

“i do.” there’s a finger resting over his lips. atsumu takes kita’s hand in his and kisses every fingertip, every joint, every inch he can rest his eyes upon. as endymion before him, atsumu cannot chose but kneel here and adore. “and i know that i don’t say this as much as i should, but i don’t want ya to forget, so let me— i love ya, atsumu. and i say this as in: i will wait for ya as long as it takes. and whenever ya want, i’ll be here. waitin’ for the day ya will walk past that gate without the intention of ever goin’ back. so just, don’t worry, okay? yer face scrunches all up when yer worried. or when yer cryin’.”

“i—” atsumu tries to say, over the big lump in his throat which atsumu plainly refuses to let win this fight. “i love ya too. oh fuck, that sounds so poor after everything ya said. i’m just— it’s _you_ , ya know.”

 _you_ , says, his hands gesturing around as if it can somehow grasp whatever kita means to him. to comprehend the incomprehensible. to close your fist around the sun and hold it in with your charred hands. to catch a glimpse of a falling star slashing the sky open in two, and make a wish upon it.

“i know, atsumu.”

“i just love ya so much.” he’s full of helium gas. he’s ready to take into the air, floating in no defined direction. he’s ready for a forest fire, a giant wave, a whirling tornado. he is ready to shine his brightest and then explode into himself. he is ready to commit himself completely. atsumu takes kita’s face in his hands, kita’s lips into his. it tastes of everything he still hasn’t tasted. tastes of everything the world has in place for him. fate in the shape of a rice cake. “and i’m so selfish and yer so selfless, but please, wait for me.”

kita’s hand moves to his chest, spreading itself over where atsumu’s heart is very much inside, beating in the pace of a drumming song. it grounds him—atsumu does not want to float aimlessly anymore. he wants to stay. “i will.”

by then, the sun is completely under the horizon. if atsumu looked up to the sky, he would be able to see a thousand stars and distant planets. mars moving towards capricornius. mercury and venus crawling closer to the sun step by step. hercules stretching his arms, ready to swallow sempiternity.

atsumu is not pious. he knows kita isn’t either. sometimes however, he wishes for someone bigger and brighter and holier to whom he could say thanks to.

past present and future. thanks for the chance i was given at it.

“i will,” kita repeats, his hand discretely — or maybe not — drying his own cheeks. as the sun rises and falls, he is the hesperides in their garden, golden apple held high, the fate of the world dangling on their fingertips. “but dinner won’t, and it must be gettin’ cold. come on, ya big baby.”

 _yer big baby. yers._ atsumu thinks, but he’s too busy smiling, and words can always be said later, into the darkest crevices of their hearts.

* * *

> **v. 19:17PM**

the silence that hangs above them is not heavy, or oppressive, or any other of the words commonly used to describe silences by writers and storytellers alike. it’s silence like a flower closing at midnight; like two pearls upcurled in the recesses of their shell. 

kita has his feet propped on atsumu’s lap, whose hands circle them like a treasure. 

“do ya wanna travel to toyooka tomorrow?” 

omurice purrs in kita’s lap, and the vision is so sweet atsumu think he hates him a little less. kita looks into his eyes as he keeps going, the corner of his lip curled into a lazy smile. “i wanted to go the hot springs, but it’s too hot for that right now. and last week ya told me ya dreamed ya were in a beach.”

“shinsuke,” atsumu kind of purrs too, just like the cat. _kind of_ , because he fails miserably—but only if one were to think his objective was to sound hot, and not, say, get kita to cackle like a chicken. “i can’t believe yer gettin’ out of yer old hermit cave because of silly little me.”

“it’s nice to be reminded of the existence of society, sometimes. and some sunlight might do ya wonders. yer gettin’ awfully pale, ya know?” 

_what?_ atsumu thinks, instantly stretching his arms in front of him to check the veracity of that information. it’s true that between practicing and playing videogames on his bed he doesn’t get that much vitamin d, but still… “really?”

kita kicks him on the side of his thigh, light. “i was messin’ with ya.” as if picking a real, human baby, he puts omurice carefully on the floor. is atsumu supposed to be jealous of it? because he is. “i mean, we can stay at home if ya wanna. it was just a suggestion.”

“no! i mean, of course i wanna go, shinsuke.” now that the threat has been suppressed for the time being, atsumu feels confident enough to scuttle closer, snuggling into kita’s body, his head resting against kita’s neck. “it’s just… i don’t know if i’ll be able to take it, ya know. ya in a boilersuit already gets me all hot and sweaty, i can’t even imagine how it’ll be spendin’ a whole day with ya clad in _beach shorts_. i might die, shinsuke. but then, i bet that was yer plan all along.”

kita lets out a quiet _tsk_ but atsumu can see the blush creeping up his cheeks, and he can’t help but feel smug for that, even if it comes at the cost of small bits of his dignity. “yer makin’ a fool of yerself.”

“i know that!” it’s true. atsumu knows that, but he can’t regret it, can’t feel embarrassed with his antics, not when the reward for that is a lazy smile slowly making itself visible on kita’s face. “but i also know ya _love_ it, so… makes it worth it.”

kita kicks him in the thigh again, but this time atsumu is quick to pull him closer by the ankle, until kita is almost on his lap, and all atsumu can see is the face of the man he loves, glowing under the moonlight that shines through the window, like an open field of endless possibilities, waiting for him with open arms.

there are many other things atsumu still wants to do in his life. play abroad, make the cut to the national’s team, travel to all cities he noted down in his notebook at the bedside table, maybe bring home a little kid and teach them to call him _papa._ but in a sense, they’re all superfluous. things he _wants—_ as in a desire to possess something, as in wishful thinking and dreams alike. 

as atsumu cradles kita in his arms, he knows that he already has all that truly matters. not only what he wants—but all that he needs. 

**Author's Note:**

> i gotta say that grandma yumie doesnt appear on this cause in my hc she had died??? and kita moved to the farm. alone. and this fic was written at least a week before 402. but now that furudate kindly told us all shes pretty much as alive as it gets and still trying to get kita to tie the knot, i promise ill mention her in the next one.


End file.
